It is often the case in hospitals and other facilities that different medicines taken out of different types of medicine containers are mixed and given to in- and out-patients. The operation of mixing medicines is usually done manually by nurses and pharmacists, for whom it is a heavy burden. Moreover, the operation of mixing medicines is complicated and difficult when the medicine containers have variety in type and shape, requiring the medicines in these containers to be sucked into a syringe differently from each other.
To reduce these inconveniences, there has been suggested a device for sucking medicines from medicine containers reliably and safely without human operation (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).
FIG. 16 is a configuration of a radioactive medicine dispensing device of Patent Literature 1.
Radioactive medicine dispensing device 30 shown in FIG. 16 is a device for dispensing radioisotope, which is a radioactive medicine as hard or harder to be handled than medicines used in hospitals and other facilities. In device 30, a radioactive medicine is dispensed from storage container 31 located at the top of device 30 into mixing container 34 located at the bottom of device 30 through injection syringe 35 by means of lift mechanism 32 and rotation mechanism 33. Since radioactive medicines should be handled with great care, storage container 31 is fixed to container holder 36 located at the top of device 30. Injection syringe 35 sucks the radioactive medicine by sticking its needle 35a into storage container 31, and moves to mixing container 34. Then, a necessary amount of the radioactive medicine is taken out of injection syringe 35 into mixing container 34.
This structure allows radioactive medicines to be handled reliably and safely without human operation.
The above-described conventional technique, however, handles specific radioactive medicines which are required to be securely fixed for safety. Thus, the technique can handle only one radioactive medicine in one operation, and cannot be used to mix a plurality of medicines contained in a plurality of medicine containers.